Free Trieste

Trieste: the Administrative Court supports with a political judgment the illegal speculations at the Free Port’s expenses

Article by Paolo G. Parovel, version published online by La Voce di Trieste on August 3rd, 2013: LINK

[Links, note, and unofficial translation: SV]

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Trieste: the Administrative Court supports with a political judgment the illegal speculations at the Free Port’s expenses

by Paolo G. Parovel

Since more than two years, our investigations and denounces about underhand dealings and politics in Trieste are focusing on the machinations and the supporters of the biggest illegal building and housing speculation ever attempted in the city’s history: the elimination of the whole Northern Free Port.

This investigation has already discovered and denounced also abnormal inertias of the local judiciary, which factually favor the illegal speculative operation by granting it abnormal impunities. But since a couple of weeks there are also two active “support lines” in the judiciary, which add up to a campaign made of the highest political-propagandistic pressing in which the promoters of the speculation are attempting to ultimately force, by illegal means, the international constraints over the free port area.

Therefore, the campaign has three simultaneous objectives: making their speculation seem legal, seizing control of the Port Authority (Autorità Portuale – APT) that manages the Free Port, and discredit the independent Free Trieste Movement, which defends the Free Port also in international fora.

The siege to the presidency of the Port Authority uses obvious defamation techniques. Discrediting a strong, spontaneous political movement that stands for the rule of law is much harder, however, it is even harder making appear legal a massive, speculative, illegal predatory speculation.

And these two, main difficult tasks are exactly the ones that have immediately received two abnormal supports from the judiciary: one from criminal justice, the other from adminsitrative justice. Therefore, the competent authorities should investigate both.

The first one is a severe repressive attack by criminal judge Gullotta and by Public Prosecutor Frezza against Free Trieste and its supporters, in complete coordination with the media, namely local newspaper Il Piccolo, along the lines established by the attacks of the politicians. To our already published investigations and complaints, however, there is more worth mentioning: they took action as the chairs of the heads of the local criminal Court and of the Prosecution are vacant.

The second support came, simultaneously, with the decision of the Regional Administrative Court for Friuli Venezia Giulia (T.A.R. F.V.G.) that rejected Portocittà’s action against the Port Authority disputing the second, failed speculative concession over the Northern Free Port.

The action was filed outside of the legal time limit, therefore, the Regional Administrative Court should have rejected it without even discussing it in the merit. Instead, the Court discussed it, and used the judgment for political purposes, building an abnormal pseudo-legal apparatus that justified and absolved the promoters of the illegal speculation in the area, and even further, future projects.

Furthermore, it appeared rather suspicious that the aforementioned group immaturely endorsed the newly published, 110-page judgment, with Regional President Serracchiani going as far as praising its “grand doctrine, and two weeks before she even anticipated two important things that are in it.

We did immediately put the judgment under analysis, with the results we have published on July 20th in La Voce press edition issue 29 (in Italian). The apparatus of “grand doctrine” is instead a groundless mess, and its purpose is unleashing not only the speculation attempt, but also decreasing even more the Free Port of Trieste in order to “extend it” to the competing Italian ports, up to Venice. In other words, a legal and political scandal.

We are evaluating all needed legal measures, from complaints to appeals, including actions before international Courts. And for the subject to be universally known and clarified, follows the online edition of the analysis we have already printed on La Voce di Trieste. Enjoy.

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La Voce di Trieste: analysis of a scandalous judgment.

The First Section of the Regional Administrative Court for Friuli Venezia Giulia rejected, with a decision lodged on July 15th, 2013, the appeal lodged in March by Portocittà S.p.A. against the Trieste Port Authority regarding the well-known concession of the Northern Free Port.

Scandalously, the judgment is based on radical misrepresentations of the law, it hampers the rights and legitimate interests of the people of Trieste, overlooks the severe criminal liabilities of well-known sectors of the local political establishment (the same one that is shameless enough to brag about it on Il Piccolo) and it would allow them not only to mutilate the international Free Port of Trieste as they wish, but also to transfer it to Monfalcone, Cervignano, and further away: even to Venice.

It is an attempted ransack that not even the Fascist regime dared attempt, it goes far beyond tolerance levels, and it is to be denounced both directly before the competent international authority, and to the Italian authorities involved.

1. General context: facts and objectives.

This event is as paradoxical as scandalous, it goes far beyond the Portocittà episode, and it constitutes an unprecedented threat to the future jobs and economy of Trieste. But both the politicians and Il Piccolo are preventing the people from discovering this operation, which is an illegal fraud. This is why we take it upon ourselves to provide an analysis as clear and as complete as possible of the administrative decision, even if reading and understanding it requires much attention and patience.

As La Voce’s readers already know, a gang of Italian ports, politicians, and parties, currently led by Venice and by the PD (Partito Democratico, as in “Democratic Party”) has been working for years, with the support of its local representative and the complete support of newspaper Il Piccolo (of group l’Espresso which handed the reigns to industrial groups from Veneto) in order to divert the European traffic routes of Trieste, Koper, and Rijeka to Venice itself and to other Italian ports, including Apulia and Calabria (Brindisi and Gioia Tauro).

In this operation, the agent groups are also attempting to neutralize the international Free Port of Trieste by blocking its southern sector with a LNG terminal, and its northern sector by handing it over, after purposely emptying it, to housing and building speculations (not without the shadow of Mafia-like criminal cartels, and with the certain involvement of people connected with criminal circles, like Angelo Balducci, Luigi Bisignani, and others) through attempts to obtain concessions in there for purposes that have nothing to do with port activities, which have been ongoing since the Maresca presidency of the Port Authority (1999-2003).

2. The abnormal concession to Portocittà.

On November 25th, 2010 the outgoing President of the Port Authority, Claudio Boniciolli (PD circles), was able to issue a 70-year concession over the best part of the Northern Free Port for activities that have nothing to do with port activities to Portocittà S.r.l., a company established for the purpose and whose main partners are the big construction companies of Maltauro and Rizzani de Eccher, already awarded with construction works in the same port area.

Odd enough, the contract didn’t contain the anti-mafia documentation required by the Prefect, as well as failing to mention the international Free Port constraints that would have prevented it in the first place. All regardless of the area’s nature being evident because of a complete, monitored customs barrier, and despite the concessionaire itself having recognized those constraints only a few months before, with a signed declaration.

Furthermore, then mayor Dipiazza, promoter of the illegal urbanization, disturbed the tendering procedure. He publicly threatened that the Municipality would resort to illegal retaliations if the procedure were awarded to the shippers, who wanted to once again use the area for port activities (Il Piccolo, November 5th, 2008). Yet, there is no evidence of investigations on Dipiazza following the fact.

Later on, Boniciolli himself stated publicly (Il Piccolo, November 25th, 2012) that among him and applicant Portocittà there were confidential, exclusive preliminary agreements and obligations, also with respect to third parties, for the later removal of the international Free Port constraints.

Indeed, he confirmed that − obviously − the parties were aware of the constraints, but «it was intended that it would be moved away, from time to time, as needed» by the sitting Prefect, in coordination with the Port Authority (Boniciolli himself, if appointed again) and with the Municipality, with mayor Dipiazza (PDL – Popolo delle Libertà – People of Freedom), and his successor, sitting mayor Roberto Cosolini (PD), who is an even more vocal supporter of the illegal speculative operation.

They are all bodies and subjects who, in truth, cannot legally remove or change a constraint established under international law, while those exclusive pacts with an applicant may have as well constituted a disturbance of the tendering procedure, and by involving a number of public and private subjects this may as well constitute the crimes of criminal association, and substantial corruption.

Especially considering that those pacts were punctually put into practice, because the concession was followed by a hammering political-propagandistic operation to illegally “break through”  the customs barrier, which took place with the active or passive complicity of the Prefect, the Municipality, and other local bodies, and even with the public support of the Prosecution Office and of the local Court.

This is why we publicly denounced the whole situation to the competent Prosecution Office of Rome, lodging further integrations for the alleged crimes of pluriaggravate fraud against the State and others, in breach of international law constraints, breach of Italian Law No. 17/1982, and disturbance of a tendering procedure.

3. Portocittà’s appeal.

However, more often than not, big construction companies are only big in- and outflows of funds and sub-tenders, which therefore mostly involve others’ funds and most of the time support a construction project with the funds gained for the next one. Anyway, it results that Portocittà S.p.A. ended 2012 without suitable funds to use for the already illegitimate urbanization of the Northern Free Port, therefore, it was unable to carry out the works.

Despite that, the company triggered the contractual clause under which the Port Authority should have handed over the remaining areas, to be vacated from existing, productive enterprises, by March 1st, 2013.

Under penalty of a huge fee, which, given the narrow terms left, the company was rather confident it could collect. With an extraordinary, coordinated effort, the Port Authority (with its new President, Monassi) and those enterprises did successfully vacate the area within the terms given for the handover, to which it seems that Portocittà didn’t even show up.

At the same time (and in evident contradiction with the request to receive the aforementioned areas), Portocittà S.p.A. had drafted and lodged an appeal to the Regional Administrative Court. The appeal, dated February 28th, 2013, and signed by CEO Enrico Maltauro, denounced the concession as illegitimate, null, and void, as well as labeling its subject (urbanization) as objectively and absolutely impossible from the start due to its incompatibility with the legal obligations that bound the area to exclusive port uses.

Hence recognizing those obligations as deriving by the Italian Government’s acceptance of the international obligations established with the 1954 Memorandum of Understanding of London that bounds it to maintain the Free Port of Trieste in accordance with the provisions at arts. 1–20 of Annex VIII of the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty.

This means that the then President of the Port Authority, Boniciolli, had no power to remove the constraints established on the area by international law and preventing the exercise of the concession for uses other than the Free Port’s specific trades, maritime, and industrial activities. Portocittà S.p.A. did therefore request the Regional Administrative Court to declare null and void ab origine the concession, and to order the Port Authority (now chaired by Monassi) to refund it the charges already paid, all expenditures already incurred, as well as Court costs.

The administrative action was a rather simple one, because the concession’s nullity and voidness for the reasons described was and is evident, however, the obvious fact that the partners and representatives of Portocittà S.r.l. (already an applicant as part of a temporary joint venture) were aware of the constraints way before agreeing to the concession, and this means they are entitled to no compensation (art. 1227 of the Italian Civil Code).

On the other side, their spontaneous recognition of the concession’s nullity on grounds of the illegitimacy of its purposes does also void their right to occupy the port area in good faith. Furthermore, as the Port Authority’s defendants argued, the appeal was inadmissible and there were further preliminary grounds for its revocation.

The inadmissibility of the appeal and the subject of the lawsuit itself should have been enough for the Court to avoid discussing it in the merit, and more than enough for it not to express itself about the well-known questions of international law regarding the Italian Government’s special trusteeship mandate, the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the Free Territory and of the international Free Port, all of which are manifestly outside the competencies of an Italian Regional Administrative Court.

4. Criminal implications for the “establishment”.

But the recognition, within that administrative proceeding, of the grounds of nullity and voidness of the concession, ultimately denounced by the awarded company itself, should also give rise to the consequent criminal liabilities.

For instance, the liabilities of the public and private signatories of an illegal act, because it damaged a legal and material good under a constraint − the international Free Port of Trieste − as well as the liabilities of other public authorities and politicians who either favored or didn’t prevent the fact. All of this is already part of our criminal complaint lodged with the Prosecution Office in Rome. The assessment of the active and passive liabilities of the Prosecution Office and of the Court of Trieste falls within the competences of the Prosecution Office in Bologna.

The private party does mainly identify with two of the main Italian construction companies, Maltauro and Rizzani De Eccher.

And the local representatives of the Italian political-authoritative establishment involved are equally prominent: former President of the Port Authority Claudio Boniciolli (PD, ex PSI – Italian Socialist Party, previously President of the Port of Venice), the former mayor of Trieste, Roberto Dipiazza (PDL – People of Freedom), the current one, Roberto Cosolini (PD, ex PCI – Italian Communist Party), former parliamentarian Roberto Antonione (ex PDL, ex LpT – Lista per Trieste – List for Trieste) and Roberto Menia (FLI – Futuro e Libertà per l’Italia – Future and Liberty for Italy, ex AN – Alleanza Nazionale – National Alliance), re-elected parliamentarian Ettore Rosato (PD, ex DC – Democrazia Cristiana – Christian Democracy), a Prefect, and more.

Including the huge complicities of the newspapers of Group Espresso when it comes to propagandas and misinformation, for instance, Il Piccolo directed by Paolo Possamai (who’s already directed La Nuova Venezia e Mestre).

And nearly all of them, facing Portocittà’s withdrawal and the complaint, instead of renouncing as well the intention to urbanize and remove from state property for illegal speculations the Northern Free Port intensified their actions to do just that, also with the support of Debora Serracchiani, who at the time was a European Parliamentarian and the PD’s candidate to the Regional Presidency.

They even unleashed groundless accusations against the sitting President of the Port Authority, Marina Monassi, in an attempt to substitute her with a person who promotes the operation against the Northern Free Port. All while the Municipality has illegally included the port area in the city’s mobility with a new Traffic Plan, approved right before the lodging of the administrative decision under examination.

In March, La Voce announced Portocittà’s administrative action (issue No. 21: analysis on the frontage, addenda to the complaint at the Prosecution Office of Rome at page 3). Our newspaper paradoxically thanked Enrico Maltauro for confirming, even if for his own gain, that we were right about the Free Port, and also for bringing proceedings before the local Courts, for them to ultimately clarify this abnormal scandal that is more and more evident.

And this was our only mistake. Because, essentially, he was shielded with a no less abnormal administrative judgment, which the beneficiaries are already using with no shame for their own goals. Even if if does in no way close the open question.

5. Structure of the abnormal judgment.

The judgment, which from the document itself results the work of the President of the Formation of the Court alone (Umberto Zuballi), without the participation of the other two judges, is not an easy read. Indeed, it consists in 51 chapters, 110 pages, and 194,000 characters, including a lot of irrelevant, or otherwise unnecessary elements, repetitions, general referrals, apodictic sentences, or merely evocative ones, even with claims with an obvious political flavor.

However, the relevant parts of the decision are only three, and the first one regards the preliminary exceptions on the grounds of prosecutability and admissibility. Of the remaining two, which in part overlap, the most limited is the practical, decisive one when it comes to the dispute. In other words, the one regarding the subject of the lawsuit.

On the other side, the theoretical, with the pretense of being doctrinal, spacing all realms of reasoning, aims at providing a personalistic interpretational summa refuting the well-known legal and political questions of the Free Territory and international Free Port. And it does so by legitimizing, and even advising the political-administrative operations that promote the urbanization of the Northern Free Port which, in truth, would result in the incrimination of the signatories of the concession challenged as illegitimate and their accomplices. And it claims that the Free Port regime, stripped away from Trieste with that operation, is in turn extensible to the whole Region!

6. Reviewing the exceptions.

Preliminarily, the judgment doesn’t address the inadmissibility and impossibility to proceed, despite both being notable ex officio, and rejects the pertinent exceptions of the Port Authority, which in themselves were enough to nullify Portocittà’s appeal, preventing the Administrative Court from discussing it in the merit as described above.

In particular, we observe, Portocittà S.p.A. lodged the appeal claiming to be the tenderer. In truth, the tenderer is the previous company, Portocittà S.r.l. and the documentation of the proceeding contains no mention or evidence, not even in the annexes, that there is a title of “succession” between those two different companies.

The Port Authority did also lodge an exception addressing the fact that Portocittà‘s action was out of time. In other words, the company initiated the proceeding more than 180 days after discovering the ground of nullity (art. 31, paragraph four of the Code of Administrative Procedure), in this case, after discovering the constraints of Free Port, which obviously predate the awarding of the concession.

But the Regional Administrative Court rejected this exception, even with the irrealistic claim that Portocittà only discovered the constraint «when, effectively, as it began the construction of the buildings and works agreed upon, it noticed the controls going on at the free Port’s entrance». As if the customs barrier and supervised crossing points were there for something else.

7. The operative part of the judgment.

As for the practical part, the judgment rejected the request to declare the concession null and void, claims that the Free Port regime does not prevent the construction works because it could be amended ad hoc on the Port Authority’s proposal, with a decree of the Commissioner of the Government. So it suggests that Portocittà and the Port Authority consensually dissolve or effectively amend the concession, and orders each party to pay its own costs.

Which incidentally results in relieving of their criminal liabilities all the political, authoritative, and private subjects responsible for the concession, despite that concession being truly illegitimate. Also, this prevents the Port Authority, or any other subject bearing a legitimate interest to do so, from seeking compensation for the damages to public properties and bringing proceedings against them, starting with former president Boniciolli. Not to mention, this all gives some apparent legitimacy to the illegal speculative urbanization of the Northern Free Port.

But there is even more, because for purposes that are obviously outside the scope of this proceeding, and with obvious political effects, the administrative judgment goes as far as claiming that the international Free Port regime not only can be reduced within Trieste itself, but it may as well be extended with Ministerial Decrees to costal and land areas near Gorizia or in Friuli, like Monfalcone, Cervignano or even further away. And it does also imply that there is no appropriate body coordinating the local and regional authorities concerned.

8. Sources and contradictions.

The apparent legal source of this claim is some specific, abnormal interpretations of the international law constraints that the judgment invokes in its “doctrinal” segment. Here, it claims that the Free Port, together with the rest of “Zone A” of the Free Territory of Trieste, is under the full sovereignty of the Italian State, and that its obligations regarding the management of the specific, consequent obligations are flexible and discretionary, even for the subjects that are clearly established by international agreements. So, for instance, is the Northern Free Port.

However, the judgment’s arbitrariness and inconsistency is also clear at its points 47, 47.1, and 49.6 in which it recognizes the limitations to the alleged flexibility and discretionality, calling illegitimate and inadmissible a concession regarding works and activities that don’t implement, but substitute those of a Free Port (maritime, commercial, and industrial), nullifying them. As is, indeed, the concession in question.

Therefore, that concession should be annulled, even just for this one aspect, which the judgment itself recognizes as appropriate and sufficient. Except that the Administrative Court dismisses it, claiming that it is not openly brought forward by the parties. In our opinion, the Administrative Court should have addressed and evaluated it ex officio under art. 1421 of the Civil Code as consecutio logica of its own reasoning about the Free Port constraints (which instead the Administrative Court cut short).

9. The theoretical part.

The prolixity and the plots within the judgment’s theoretical part, which stretch as far as covering international law, make its analysis even more complex, while making its abnormalities less evident. To clarify the matter, we now need to compare a synthesis of the state of law alleged within the judgment, which is groundless, with the actual state of law.

All are limited to the main false or erroneous interpretations, which, as such, invalidate and nullify the judgment’s whole structure. All while putting aside the minor, consequential, or marginal allegations, the analysis of which would require dozens of pages.

Update: in 2016, the Law Commission of the I.P.R. F.T.T. – International Provisional Representative of the Free Territory of Trieste released an expertise that describes the status of the present-day Free Territory and of its international Free Port precisely and accurately. The expertise refutes administrative judgment No. 400/2013 and its twin, administrative judgment No. 530/2013. Read the document HERE.

9.1. The presumption of Italian sovereignty.

The whole judgment is based (therefore refutable) on the premise of Italian sovereignty over Zone A of the Free Territory of Trieste and over its international Free Port, from which would also derive all the powers the judgment ascribes to bodies of the Italian State, including the Regional Administrative Court’s own jurisdiction (which comes off as self-declared), on penalty of them having no authority at all.

Here is a summary of the claims that support said premise:

a) that the Free Territory of Trieste does not exist as a sovereign State, because it was never established;§

b) that the Allied Military Government was a mere de facto military occupation;
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c) that the 1954 Memorandum of London is a treaty that abolished the provisions of the 1947 establishing the Free Territory, labeling them as impossible to enforce under the international principles “rebus sic stantibus” (so are things), and that it established the Italian State’s borders with the Yugoslav State assigning “Zone A” to Italy and “Zone B” to Yugoslavia;
§

d) that those borders were validly confirmed by the Italian-Yugoslav Treaty of Osimo, by domestic measures of the Italian State, including the Constitutional Law that establishes the Autonomous Region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and by acts of the European Community;
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e) that the Italian and European Union’s legal orders are therefore directly and unconditionally extended and enforceable within the territory so obtained.

All five claims are false because, as per the synthetic complete legal review we have published on La Voce No. 27, the Free Territory of Trieste does fully exist as a State, and a member de jure of the United Nations, under the temporary civil administration of the Italian Government (not of the Italian State) by virtue of an international trusteeship mandate that punctually envisions and provides for said provisional regime of Government.

The simulations of Italian sovereignty constitute breaches of international law as well as of the Italian legal order. The fact that certain Italian judicial authorities support them is therefore serious and problematic for them.

Note: the aforementioned “legal review” is a 2013 document. Since then, the Free Trieste Movement’s research has revealed many more aspects of the question of Trieste, especially about Region Friuli Venezia Giulia and the Commissioner of the Government’s powers.

In 2017, the Law Commission of the I.P.R. F.T.T. – International Provisional Representative of the Free Territory of Trieste released a second expertise. This review of laws covers the Italian legislation that ratifies and enforces the legal obligations of both the Italian State and the Italian Government respect to the present-day Free Territory of Trieste, and the related obligations respect to all other States and the United Nations. Read the document HERE.

9.2. Alleged discretion of the Italian side in maintaining the Free Port.

The judgment claims that the obligation imposed upon the Italian Government under the 1954 MOU as for maintaining the international Free Port of Trieste “in general accordance” with arts. 1–20 of Annex VIII of the 1947 Italian Peace Treaty means downgrading them to mere, abstract principles, enforceable at the Italian State’s unconditioned discretion, and subject to the Italian State’s own laws and interests.

The claim is false, because the adjective “general” in that sentence is not a reduction, it emphasizes the “accordance”; the Italian translation of “in general accordance” is therefore “in ottemperanza” as in “in compliance with” (source: the legal translation of the 1954 MOU, care of the Court of Trieste, as part of criminal proceeding No. 854/10). And even if it weren’t like that, the discretionary enforcement of those provisions would remain grounded in the nature and purposes of the mandate of temporary civil administration of the Free Territory of Trieste, not in the Italian State’s own volitions.

9.3. Alleged modifiability of the constrained Free Port areas.

The administrative judgment claims that all the areas of the international Free Port of Trieste are open for modification (by reduction, suspension, or relocation) on the Port Authority’s request and with a decree of the Commissioner of the Government. And, as a surreptitious evidence of that, it mentions both notifications that have already occurred: the non-binding extension of the Free Port regime to areas that are not under the constraints of the aforementioned international instruments because they are successive, and, on the other side, the recent illegitimate measures adopted by two Commissioners of the Government (Prefects Balsamo and Giacchetti) over the Northern Free Port in order to facilitate the illegitimate concession disputed in the lawsuit.

The claim is untrue (and the alleged evidence pointless) because the pertinent, binding international instruments strictly establish constraints that bind the Free Zones to Free Port activities within their 1939 limits, making that their minimum area and assets, and they do so precisely to prevent that liberties be taken with unlimited modifications only to result in excessive reductions or in the outright elimination of the whole Free Port.

9.4. Alleged powers of the Commissioner of the Government in the Region.

The administrative judgment lists, among the administrative powers of the current Commissioner of the Government (ambiguously failing to specify their role “in the region” more than once) as a “body of the Italian State” also legislative powers over the Free Port.

This claim is false, because the powers in question were vested in the Commissioner General for the Territory of Trieste, an officer appointed by the Italian Government to exercise the temporary civil administration of the Free Territory. And, since that officer ceased to exist in 1963, those powers have therefore returned to the Italian Government in its role of provisional administrator or to a new officer specifically tasked with their exercise.

Note: the above premise is correct, but its conclusions are incomplete. For the full details about the Commissioner General’s evolution into a Commissioner of the Government in the Region and the officer’s powers, please refer to point G.3 of the review of laws cited above.

9.5. Alleged authority of the Municipality and of the Region on urbanization matters.

The administrative judgment claims full legitimacy, under the law, of the urban planning powers of the Municipality and of the Region within areas of the Free Port of Trieste.

This claim is false, because those powers derive from the overlapping of the Italian State’s legal order, which as such cannot be legitimately enforced within the administered Free Territory, nor can they be extended to it because they conflict with the provisions of Annex VIII of the 1947 Italian Peace Treaty. Which do also envision the concentration of all powers pertaining to the Free Port’s authority within one only authority, the exclusive role of which can therefore be provisionally assigned to a suitable body of the provisional administration (like the Port Authority) but cannot be split.

9.6. Alleged lack of a coordinator for the authorities involved in the Free Port’s activities.

At points 44, 44.1 and 50.1 the judgment heavily implies that no efficient coordination exists among the public and private bodies involved in the Free Port activities.

This claim is false because that function is already granted by the Port Authority’s own, dedicated Port Committee, in which those bodies are all represented with both consultative and decisional roles.

9.7. Alleged estensibili of the regime of the Free Port of Trieste to Gorizia and to Friuli.

At its point 43.6, the administrative judgment claims that «furthermore, nothing prevents the extension of the free port also to other zones of the Region different from the Province of Trieste, like, for instance, Monfalcone or Cervignano», with a Ministerial Decree in place of a Decree of the Commissioner, and at point 43.5 it establishes, as a justifying principle, the “functional connection with the port of Trieste”.

The claim is false, because that is forbidden not only by the nature of the provisions of international law that grand and limit the Free Port privileges to the Free Territory of Trieste, which as such is not part of the Italian national territory, but also by the European Union’s own provisions to which the Italian State is instead subject. In other words, this would constitute an illegal and very severe predatory act committed by the administering Government and by a third Country at the expenses of the administered Free Territory.

9.8. Implied extensibility to Veneto.

The administrative judgment does also envision the extension of Trieste’s Free Por Regime to connected functional areas with a Ministerial Decree, but fails to anchor to any explicit legal limitation its mention, within the text, of Region Friuli Venezia Giulia alone, making it merely conversational. Therefore, that administrative decision does not rule out, but implies the extensibility of Trieste’s Free Port Regime to other port areas or even the inland, as long as they may be labeled as “functionally” connected with Trieste.

As could be Porto Nogaro, but also Region Veneto with the envisioned diversion of the Baltic-Adriatic Route from the Graz-Ljubljana-Trieste-Koper course to the Graz-Klagenfurt-Tarvisio-Udine (Monfalcone, Trieste, Porto Nogaro) – Venice course. And it is only in this case that the idea of a body other than the Port Authority in charge of coordinating other bodies makes sense.

10. Regional President Serracchiani’s anticipations.

Surprising enough, in the weeks before the lodging of the administrative judgment, the sitting Regional President Debora Serracchiani anticipated in public meetings two of the thesis that, at this moment, are supported and confirmed exclusively within the structure of the judgment that was yet to be lodged: the alleged possibility to transfer or to reduce the Free Port with a Commissarial Decree in coordination with the Port Authority, and the proposal to establish a new Agency for the coordination of public bodies different than the Port Authority.

And to us it is rather surprising that Serracchiani herself, being a lawyer, declared to the press that the huge judgment is “of grand doctrine” right after its lodging. Namely, when nobody, except the Formation of the Regional Administrative Court, should have and could have known and evaluated its contents well enough.

For this reason, we conclude this analysis by asking Serracchiani to explain us at least this, a question we are also asking to the regulating Authorities to whom we are about to report the whole situation, which we believe is absolutely unacceptable and scandalous.